The Menstruality Podcast - 171. Mothering, Matrescence and Perimenopause (Amy Taylor Kabbaz)

Episode Date: November 7, 2024

What do we do when we’re experiencing significant changes physically, emotionally and spiritually in the years running up to menopause, all we want to do is run far, far away, but we still have kids at home who need our care and support?This question is coming up a lot in our community and that’s why I’m so grateful to be talking with Matrescence expert, journalist and coach, Amy Taylor Kabbaz, who also happens to be smack in the middle of perimenopause, with three children at home. Over the past decade, Amy has interviewed hundreds of authors, maternal health experts, and teachers, trying to decipher why so many mothers feel burnt out, overwhelmed, and addicted to being busy. Over the past year she’s been exploring how we can support ourselves through the huge transition of perimenopause, and she shares the fruits with us today.  We explore:How the ‘fork in the road’ of perimenopause is helping Amy to change deep patterns, including shifting her old go-to approach of “give me the pill, I’ve got sh*t to do”.Perimenopause as a kind of ‘pregnancy’ which prepares us for the rebirth of ourselves through the spiritual initiation of menopause. How to manage perimenopause symptoms  including exhaustion, irritability and anger, brain fog and the often overwhelming ‘motherload’ of care and responsibility, and still show up for our kids.---Find out more about the Red School Menstruality Leadership programme: www.menstrualityleadership.com---The Menstruality Podcast is hosted by Red School. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social media:Red School: @red.school - https://www.instagram.com/red.schoolSophie Jane Hardy: @sophie.jane.hardy - https://www.instagram.com/sophie.jane.hardyAmy Taylor Kabbaz: @amytaylorkabbaz - https://www.instagram.com/amytaylorkabbaz

Welcome to the Menstruality Podcast, where we share inspiring conversations about the power of menstrual cycle awareness and conscious menopause. This podcast is brought to you by Red School, where we're training the menstruality leaders of the future. I'm your host, Sophie Jane Hardy, and I'll be joined often by Red School's founders, Alexandra and Sharni, as well as an inspiring group of pioneers, activists, changemakers and creatives to explore how you can unashamedly claim the power of the menstrual cycle to activate your unique form of leadership for yourself, your community and the world. Hey, welcome back to the podcast. What do we do when we're experiencing significant changes physically, emotionally, spiritually in the years running up to menopause? And all we want to do is run far, far away away but we still have kids at home who deeply need our care and

support. So this question is coming up so much in our community for the women and people who are in their 40s in the autumn years of the menstruality life arc in the quickening or perimenopause and that's why I'm so grateful to be talking with matrescence expert, journalist and coach Amy Taylor Capaz today, who also happens to be smack in the middle of perimenopause herself with three children at home. So over the past decade, Amy has interviewed hundreds of authors, maternal health experts and teachers trying to decipher why so many mamas feel burnt out, overwhelmed and addicted to being busy. Over the past year she's been personally exploring how we can support ourselves through the huge transition of perimenopause at the same time and today she shares the fruits of her journey with us. So let's get started with mothering, matrescence and perimenopause with the wonderful

Amy Taylor-Kabaz. So Amy, thank you so much for coming back to the Menstruality Podcast. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited about another conversation with you. In our first conversation, we spoke about matrescence, this initiation of coming into motherhood. And the reason why I reached out to you is because I'd love to speak about what happens when matrescence continues, right? It's not like, oh, I'm done becoming a mum after three months or a year and what happens when we enter perimenopause or get into our 40s and start to feel the kinds of shifts that we can associate with perimenopause and how to navigate the ongoing becoming of motherhood whilst so many different things are changing and there's loads of questions from our community come in all

the time around just how to do life with all of this change that's going on and who better to talk about that with than you Amy. Thank you. Before we get into it I'd love to hear yeah what kind of cycles you're with in your life at the moment? Do you track your menstrual cycle? Do you feel any of the changes around perimenopause going on? You know, where are you at with this? Yeah, I'm smack bang in the middle of perimenopause. Let's just start with that full acknowledgement. In fact, it's three o'clock in the afternoon in Sydney here. And for the benefit of the audio of the podcast I've turned the air conditioning off which will probably mean over the next hour you'll see my face go very red and have all of these different moments of energies moving through my body. I will be 48

at the end of this year. I have three children as people have heard me speak before, who are now, they're all about to have their birthdays. So they are about to be 17, 15 and 11. And in the last few years, yeah, a lot has changed for me hormonally. I got divorced in 2020 and met a new partner and actually had two miscarriages with him. So that was also throwing my hormones and everything around. And then I decided to go on the pill. I haven't been on the pill since I was 27. And, you know, that was the advice I was given, especially after the second miscarriage. I found it really, really hard. It really emotionally, hormonally, physically took a lot out of me. But I didn't like that. I really struggled. I knew it was balancing things out in terms of what the doctor believes. But for me personally, it didn't feel,

I just didn't feel very good on it. So only recently have I come off of it. So I am smack bang into feeling it all again. And my period now comes every 21 days. So yes, that's not what it used to do. It's now like quickening and all of those things. So yeah, I'm going through all of it. Yeah. Yeah, I hear you. It's interesting that you use the word quickening then because Alexandra and Sharni, who co-founded Red School, they speak about this phase that many call perimenopause as the quickening.

They talk about it wow like it's a time often many years often late 40s of preparation for the next great initiation of of menopause and I'm personally I mean I've got my hands at your back and I'm supporting you but I'm excited for you to go through menopause and to talk to you about it knowing what you know about the initiation of motherhood and I'm curious to see how you can apply everything that you've learned through through menopause um but they call it the quickening because of all the different um kind of speeding up that can happen inside physically but also and hormonally, but also psychologically. Well, I totally agree. And I think in matrescence, the way we talk about it and teach about it in

Mama Rising is that it is an opportunity to reevaluate who you are and what's important and your values and your sense of self and let go of those old false beliefs if we're supported properly. Obviously, you can go into motherhood and matrescence. And if you don't know about that, which is how I experienced it, didn't know anything about it, landed in it, completely fell apart. But if you're supported, it's this beautiful initiation, rite of passage and opportunity. And what I saw myself doing with this hormonal fluctuation and quickening over the last 12 months is I did what I did when I first got my period, when I first entered motherhood. And here it is again. I went to my GP, my traditional doctor, laid out my symptoms and started taking the tablet. Now for anyone who's listening, I totally think there's nothing

wrong with that. But what I recognized in the process, Sophie, was that that's what I've always always done is ignored what my body is telling me and tried to sort of suppress it enough to be able to keep going. And I adore the work of Jane Hudwick Collins. And she speaks so beautifully about this, that each of these moments in a woman's life is an opportunity. It's like we get to the fork in the road and it's an opportunity to re-wound, to do it the way you've always done or to choose a different way. And I didn't get that chance with matrescence because I didn't know what it was. I did by my third baby-ish, but still, I really didn't understand all of this until all my babies were were you know I was well past that early stage and so too I agree there's an excitement here there's there's I feel a little bit like oh I get to do it with knowledge this is the first time in my 47 and a half years that

I'm going into this with my eyes wide open it's uncomfortable and I wish we could just, you know, my old way is hurry up, give me the pill, let's just do it. I want to be on the other side. I've got shit to do. But I'm trying to learn how to not just go back into that old pattern. Yeah. And there is such a truth in that I've got shit to do, particularly when you're caring for one or more little people. It's like, we're all in this together, understanding how do we stay close to ourselves, support ourselves, whilst the world is carrying on wanting us to show up and do, do, do and hold everything for everybody. And I think this is one of the things you speak about a lot with matrescence is why it's so hard

for us to be with the initiatory processes because the world doesn't have a context so much for it yet. No. And I think, you know, early motherhood is such a, just due to its very nature, it's very physical, demanding nature. Those first few years, we can do the best we can to try and honor ourselves and look after ourselves. But the reality is you do give yourself to these little people physically, emotionally, you know, sleep wise, all of it for those first few years. And then if we had a village around us, if we had a system that was set up to do this differently, we would then very much be able to start to explore ourselves again. But because of the way that we mother in our culture and in our society, you know, I have nearly a 17 year old and I am still the main

person who is responsible for her. She's got extra needs with her mental health. We've been through a lot, which I'm happy to reflect on too, if you think it would be helpful. But I have had so many moments over the last few years. And whenever I've shared this with my community, it's really resonated. I thought the time for me to be exploring who I am, especially now being a single woman in my forties, like, you know, who am I? What do I want with my life? I thought I would have so much more space and time and capacity and energy to be able to do that for myself now. And I have just as little time as I did when they were toddlers. And that's actually been really hard for me to accept. You know, I think we're told another one of the lies of motherhood.

We're told that, you know, it's this intense period at the beginning and then you're done. No. If you ask my mum, she still feels like she's doing that sometimes with me and her grandchildren. And I think my understanding of perimenopause and menopause really is this turning, not turning away, that's not the right way to say it. It's this returning to a self-focus.

You know, when we look at the maiden and the mother, like that mother period, whether you become a mother or not, is so much about nurturing something outside of yourself. And then when we enter this next season, it's about returning to yourself again in a lot of ways. But when you've still got kids at home and kids with extra needs and just the life and the world we live in, it can be, I don't know, it can be pretty hard to realize, ah, this is not what I thought it would be like by now. Yeah, 100%. And one of the things I'd love to do with you is kind of go through the list of things that many experience like overwhelm, anger and irritability brain fog and all these different things and like let's get strategic about how to how to be but just before we go there I'd love to hear you speak about and

you've already started already that matrescence isn't like a one and done um how it unfolds over the kind of like life arc of our mothering years is is it a constant, I'm asking as a mama of a nearly four-year-old, is it a constant thing? Like, am I going to be becoming a mother my whole life now? Like, how do you see that? Yes. And look, there's different ways to approach matrescence. There's some amazing experts and research and data around the world now who's really studying the science of it, the neuroscience, how does the brain change, the physical, emotional, hormonal, all of those things. Me personally, and my work that I'm super passionate about is the identity shift of matrescence,

because that was my biggest struggle. When you look at matrescence through that lens of, I am a different person because of the experiences of my child or children and the season that they're in, it directly affects back again how I see myself, the decisions I make, how much I work, how much I don't work, my relationships, all of it. That to me, when you define matrescence as that massive identity shift, then it never changes. Sorry, it never ends. It always changes.

It's always changing and it never ends it always changes it's always changing and it never ends and again I use the word lie I know that that's a very strong word you know back in my journalism days at the ABC you could never call anybody a liar on the on the radio because you'd be sued but I use that word quite consciously because I do think it is a lie in the sense of we tell women that these these years of change and sacrifice and and um service to our children almost is finite like we we tell them that it's these first couple years are hard and then you're all good and that's I think one of the struggles that I see so many of the women in my community and myself included, is that we keep holding our breath for that moment

where we get to be who we used to be again. We keep hanging on to, well, maybe when they start school, I'll feel like myself again and I'll be able to do those things I've been waiting to do. I'm making it sound like motherhood is the worst thing ever. It's actually, you know, I don't want to sound like that, but I think we need to be real about this has changed us and it will continue to define us in ways that we might not even want it to, but it just does. You know, when your kid's not okay then you have to make a decision about what changes that's just the reality of it yeah and that doesn't end yeah and if we can come to a level of acceptance but also then like I said before see this is this beautiful opportunity of okay so we're now in this season what's important important to me? What's important to my family?

How are we going to do that? That makes such a difference. Can you say more about the opportunity that matrescence is giving us? What is the promise of it? Well, I really want to honor my teacher here um dr orally athan um who i began to work with directly in 2019 she's based in new york at columbia university and she really at the time and still now was very much the lead researcher and um you know academic about matrescence, she describes matrescence as a spiritual awakening. And that deeply resonated with me when I first started working with her five years ago,

because she came to this work because she, in her background and focus and studies on psychology, and in her lab with her PhD students, they were asking the question, is there a similar spiritual awakening, a questioning about who I am and what's important in my life that everybody tends to experience when they witness death or the end of life? Is there a similar spiritual awakening when you witness the start of life wow that was the question she asked in her lab with her students years and years ago which then they uncovered this word matrescence and then she was like oh my gosh this is what we've been waiting for and now we all know the word thanks to her.

So when I talk about it being an opportunity, when we think about it as a spiritual awakening, like I said before, it is this beautiful opportunity to question yourself and what's important and, and, and redefine your purpose and all of these beautiful things if we are supported in the right way. So a spiritual awakening is only really truly completed when you understand what's going on and you're not scared and judging yourself or being silent about it because you think everybody's going to think you're crazy. When we have spaces and places and words to understand this process, then it is beautiful. But spiritual awakenings and these, they're a death of the ego. You have to grieve who you used to be. They're often lonely and isolating and dark at times. And then suddenly you come into this light and you realize,

oh, my gosh, I'm a better person because of that experience. And that to me is the opportunity of matrescence. Oh, you are blowing my little mind, which happened last time I spoke to you. Everything you say, like 18 thoughts pop up I'm just remembering walking along with my probably like three or four month old little you know in a in a sling and I was having these rushes of awakening and insight about I called it the mother web and I can't quite connect to this now. It was something that was very,

it was what was happening because of witnessing this new life, like you said. And I was seeing how all of us had been children, I guess. Yes. And how actually I'm a mother to everyone on the planet. Oh, it reorganized me entirely because well it it catalyzed a journey that was already going on around um racism really and me and my whiteness and what that means in the world and how to dismantle these systems that are holding me apart from others and it just it just

you know I've been blown apart a thousand times as a mother, but that's part of it. I love that. Yes, it just, I love that because that's the potential, right? If we could understand this then, and also the neuroscience backs us on this now anyway. We are now, they've studied finally, you know, I can't believe it's taken us this many decades to start studying what happens to a woman's brain after she has a baby. Instead of just dismissing it and saying, oh, well, it's baby brain. She's just now stupid.

Oh, don't get me started. But we are actually finally doing the research, and it shows that the brain rewires to think about the world first rather than yourself first. In our training, in Mama Rising, we call it, we go from me to we. It's this sense of, oh my gosh, it's like you take these glasses off and you see everything as, first of all, probably terrifying. Like, you know, who hasn't had that experience of driving home from the hospital with your newborn and then suddenly all the cars are going too fast and everyone is too close and, oh, my gosh, get away from me. Like this is the brain rewiring itself. And that's got such beautiful potential if we could harness that. say to mothers, interestingly, again, the research is showing that the longer the non-birthing parent

can stay at home and connect with the baby, the more their brain changes almost exactly the same. Wow. I'm seeing this with my brother and sister-in-law right now because they live in Germany. The first three days of my niece's life, they were in hospital together. The midwife was showing them breastfeeding, like warm towels on them breastfeeding like warm towels on the breast then cold towels on the breast and Steve was watching it all avidly and um he it's just beautiful watching them and then they were at home together for three months both of them it's like this is how it should be in Germany you know that that's a state that supports families to start in this way just beautiful yeah it's showing that it works in the non-birthing parent or the dads and also I've seen it a lot with parents who became

parents during COVID and the dad was at home he may have been working from home but he was in the vicinity at least so he could hear the constant crying or step in between the meetings and help more hands-on. And they're different dads because of that. Instead of being away in the office and not even aware of what's going on, they're parenting differently because they've been exposed to that. And therefore all of the neurological changes and the identity change has been so much more thorough I guess you could say yeah anyway gosh we just keep going off in different tangents we I get we get very excited yeah we are very excited I mean I want to bring us back to perimenopause because yes very with what you shared at the beginning about this returning to self,

particularly now in the context of moving from me to we, like you just described. So just to name this and contextualize it for us, because like you said, when we have the words, we can make sense of these spiritual initiations instead of feeling like we're going mad and losing our hormones and our psycho-spiritual sort of structure inside are moving from we to me again. Exactly. The people-pleasing hormone is dropping. No wonder we feel pissed off when everyone expects us to carry on doing all of the caring and the loving and the holding like no I don't want to do that anymore I mean there's a reason why we're kind of made to have babies earlier than this because when we hit our mid-40s again in an ideal world with the village and

community around us and all of our children being healthy happy and, we would be moving into perimenopause with much more space and ability to retract from that role, to be a little bit more separated from that daily intense need. That's not how we do it anymore. We have our babies later and later. And so often we have mothers moving into perimenopause with either little ones or with teenagers themselves who are going in through adolescence, which is a whole, which has been my experience, which has been a whole wild ride.

I think the most important thing to remember here, and it's always been my first port of call, it's always been the first stop in the process, is once we understand that that's what is happening, we can begin to not judge ourselves so much. It's not because you're a terrible mother, or you've got anger issues, or there's something wrong with you. It's not because you're a terrible mother or you've got anger issues or there's something wrong with you. It's not that you have to get up earlier and go to that yoga class. Or if only you were more organized, you would feel less brain fog. Like, let's just start from the facts. Like as a journalist, for me, it's always like, well, what do we know?

What do we know is going on here? We know that this is what's happening at this age we're also feeling this pull like I think it's so important and such a relief to understand that this is why I'm feeling this way and then what do we do about it is the next step but I so often I think we jump to what do we do about it and what we need to do is just acknowledge it first like it's huge and hard and we're pulled between still very much needing to be of service in so many different ways and also this is our time where we're meant to be um yeah where our role and our identity is changing again yeah yeah that's why we need each other isn't it like very much so other people who

get this context so that we don't feel so alone and at red school we have our community hub where there are conversations going on about this all the time and this sense of oh phew it's not just me I'm not I'm not going crazy I'm not alone um all of these things I'm feeling makes sense that's it it makes sense that's it yeah I'm not sure I don't remember I'm sorry perimenopause I don't remember if I said this in my last interview with you but again I I learned from Dr Athan words create worlds I love that quote it's like I almost want to get it tattooed um when we don't have the words or we don't have the context we don't have the understanding that we don't know how we fit in like we we judge ourselves but if we can have the words it creates the world that we're in

it makes sense of everything um so that's yeah I think that's where we start yes yes I think another important piece of context here is um around again back to the identity shifts that are going on and something that I was chatting to Sharni about before having this conversation because she was very excited that you and I were talking so what she was sharing was how pregnancy that period of pregnancy prepares us for the initiation of birth and particularly early motherhood it's like we're having to surrender our body in so you know more and more and more and more and that helps with the whole freaking massive surrender that happens in in birth and ongoingly especially postpartum and she was talking about how maybe perimenopause

is preparing us for the initiation of menopause in a similar way. Like it's our pregnancy for ourselves in menopause. Oh, I love that. Oh, I'm going to have to use that. That is, I 100% agree with that. And I've actually, I've just got goosebumps all the way down my body. I had never seen it so clearly. Yes, you're right and it is once again that um how we do one birth is

how we do them all right how do we how do we support ourselves through these initiations how do we support ourselves through these identity shifts um I think for me what that shows is I have if I could talk about my own experience here for a moment, I have really, I'll be totally honest, struggled with the changes in my body shape in the last 12 months with perimenopause. In my work with matrescence, we have a wheel of matrescence that our coaches and facilitators use to work with mamas. And around the wheel are the different areas of your life, you know, physical, hormonal, relationships, financial,

social, cultural. And so we look at how that's been changed through the experience of matrescence. When I think about if we had a wheel of perimenopause, I think the physical at the moment is the part that is like the biggest wake-up change area of acceptance. And it's been really interesting to go back to all of the, you know, the inner mean voice that I had as a teenager that I haven't

heard in 32, 35 years, that this voice is coming back up again. And it really is. And I remember now you've said this, I remember feeling like that at the start of pregnancy as well. I think once I had the beautiful big belly and it was more obvious why I looked fat, I think I loved it a lot more. But I remember in those early months when it wasn't obvious yet that I was pregnant or I wasn't telling anybody how much I felt like this body wasn't mine. I didn't understand how it was going to change. It felt really scary. I didn't like the way it looked or moved. Like I remember walking down the street and feeling my thighs like rubbing together and being like, oh, yuck.

And all of that's coming back again. And again, if we didn't know why that was there, that could be incredibly hard. And it really feels like you have gone backwards. But if we look at it like a pregnancy, like you've just suggested, then this is, yeah, this is the preparation for how we're changing to give birth to our next version of ourselves. I love that. I'm going to pause my conversation with Amy for a few moments to share an invitation with you. There are just a few weeks left to join Alexandra and Sharni for the 2025 Menstruality Leadership Program at Red School. So this is the world's first leadership training rooted in the wisdom and power of the menstrual

cycle. It's a three-month immersion to help you discover your calling, your purpose, to embody your power, find your voice, your authority and your natural leadership rhythm with your menstrual cycle as your ally. The bit I love the most about the program, as we've been chatting about today, the menstrual cycle, the matrescence process, perimenopause, menopause, all have a mission to deliver us home to our deep selves. And that can particularly happen if we're rested. A core part of the menstruality leadership program is embodying a series of 12 leadership skills one of which my favorite one is restedness so that you can explore your way of leading from a well-rested

place the doors are closing for the program in just a few weeks you can find out more and take And take your seat at menstrualityleadership.com. That's menstrualityleadership.com. Yeah, and we can each then play a part in changing the conversation globally around what it means to be a woman, a mother in our 50s with a different body with a different brain with like this new sense of authority capacity for truth speaking to power you know and this sense of I know who I am and you aren't going to get in my way like what is available how the world could benefit from this you know Jane Harding Colling speaks about the grandmother hypothesis you know why are women living beyond menopause we see it in the whales and the orcas you know we the grandmothers are playing a tremendously important role for the community and you know the post-menopausal woman is holding

power and a capacity to love and see that is vital in our world like ever more more needed but isn't yet being acknowledged in the way it needs to be right yeah and i think it's going to happen in the way that it's always happened is that we will gather and talk like this, like you and I are first, and we will have our little red tents in our communities and our women's circles and our mother's groups and however we want to gather in lots of different places around the world. And then together we're going to be seen. I feel like we're going back to that collective power. Yes. And that's what also what the world needs. I remember one of my yoga teachers years and years ago mentioned something along the lines of, you know, we've had the different ages of wisdom,

the age of Aquarius and the ages of all the different times. I'm sorry, I don't know them off the top of my head. But what we're heading into is that we are now heading into the age where it is not one individual, but it is a collective that will make the change that we need to see. And I feel like, without any disrespect to the masculine men out there, but I do feel like it's going to be the older women that really are going to be those voices yeah yes well I'm very moved by how this golden thread that we keep coming back to in this conversation about me and we okay this pregnancy of perimenopause if we're going to call it that yeah it's like almost like an in-breath coming

back to ourselves so that we can do the next exhale of you know being in service to life that's very moving wow yeah it's really moving and it also um for me when I think about it there's there's excitement. I think, I don't know if it's just me. I don't think so because I listen to women's voices all the time. But I think if we can remember the bigger purpose And shift from the individual experience to the global experience, it kind of gives me a little bit of determination and resilience to keep going because, again, I think in our culture we are so individual and we are so isolated and separated from each other that when we remember that we're all doing this and there is a reason

for it and it's going to be amazing on the other side, it just helps me keep going. It reminds me of when I was breastfeeding my kids, like when they were tiny, tiny babies. And I found that incredibly hard. I had those lonely nights and especially with my first, she was so unsettled and it was such a really scary, lonely time. And I eventually started this little practice that I just kind of made up, but it kind of became my nightly ritual. While I was feeding her, I would close my eyes and I would almost hover above my house in my head and picture that there was another mum two streets away doing exactly the same thing. And then I'd go a little bit higher and see in my suburb, there was like five at the same time doing the same thing and then I'd do my

city my country you know the world and I just felt like you know what I don't know if I can get through tonight because this is so damn hard but I could draw on the knowledge that everybody else was doing it too and then I could do it and I feel it's sort of similar with this next initiation with perimenopause and menopause and us going into these beautiful grandmother stereotypes, where it is isolating and hard and your brain doesn't work the way you think it is. And suddenly your body doesn't feel, you know, you feel like so uncomfortable in yourself again and all of those things that come up. But if we could perhaps remember, like in communities like yours, that she's doing it

too. And the woman on the other side of the street's doing it too. And there's this many over in our community. Like maybe that can be where we draw our resilience and our strength from yeah that is so beautiful amy thank you for sharing that and it feels like a good time to segue into the practical and the strategic yes let's do that so we so we have the context the words and create the world and now we're still living in the world that doesn't get this so how do we how do we

navigate it and I was just scrolling through your Instagram feed yesterday and there was an interview that you had with someone called Cece I think yes yeah and it was brilliant the little clip that you had it was about how as mothers we wear we're carrying very heavy backpacks and we're actually carrying like like if we have one two three kids one two or three of their backpacks too yes depending on if we're co-parenting or how that's going we might be carrying some for our partner as well and it's a heavy burden and she was saying what we really need to do in menopause and I would say in the years running up to menopause is take the backpacks off she said empty them all out look at what's inside these backpacks and consciously decide what we want to put back in

to carry that was a great isn't she amazing um yeah She's a mama rising coach who also specializes in supporting mothers through menopause. So I'll share the details with you of her work. And what I love about that is that again, we're not saying take the backpacks off and don't pick them back up again. I think again, that's something that, you know, we, we hear so much about self-care and boundaries and priorities and make sure you're doing it. The reality is, you know, with my three kids, I don't take those backpacks off, you know, and I don't want to either. That's not the solution that I'm seeking. But if I'm not consciously aware of that, of how heavy they are and what's in the bags, I will carry too much too far for too long. And that's where the resentment, the anger, the burnout, the sickness, everything comes through. So what I love about the way she

talked about it is that we take moments to take those off and tip them out and decide what goes back in. Because when I think about that, that's also the invitation for me personally at the moment is we are further down the matrescence and motherhood path. I can let go. It's scary, especially with one of my children who's had so many struggles but you know she she's ready to go more than I am ready to let her go yeah damn motherhood you spend half the time wishing they would go and then the rest of the time wishing they didn't um and I think that's what that beautiful you know invitation is like what really can you let go of what can they do themselves now um what can you get your partner to do how can you redefine all of this and and and reflect on what um you need to let go of. And I think it's important to add there that within that little

process, there's a grieving of the end of the season. Yes. And sometimes that's really uncomfortable to acknowledge and to sit with that, oh my gosh, those days are gone. Like that's done. They don't need me as much or whatever it looks like for you. And it's almost like this little micro ritual of, yeah, it's time. They're good. I mean, I'm now in the final year before Artie goes to school and I just suddenly realized as happens in motherhood, cause it's all just changing so much all the time. Oh my God, he's going to be at school five days a week. And this is my chance now, if I want to spend more time with this little guy.

So I've actually pulled him out of nursery for an extra day. I don't have any less work to do. So I'm like, this was an interesting choice. I've been like up until midnight, three days this week, like, oh, I've got to figure out how this is going to work but yeah it's just funny we just have to keep readjusting don't we because that sense of grieving just took me and made me make a decision that I now I'm glad about but I need to live with and that's you know we're just constantly dealing with the day-to-day making decisions and then

living with the consequences. Exactly there's a phenomenal author and journalist in Australia called Annabelle Crabb. She writes a lot about feminism and motherhood and politics. And she talks about this balance that we're always seeking. We always talk about this balance and how it's this elusive thing that we're trying to get, which obviously none of us actually ever achieve. But the way she talks about it, which I really love, is that it's like being on a tightrope every day. And when you look at somebody on the tightrope, to stay in the center, they're actually slightly tipping left and right all the time. And they're correcting themselves and a little bit too far this way, a little bit too far that way. And it's this tiny, sometimes micro adjustments. And then sometimes, you know, big adjustments to make sure you don't fall. But that's what we're trying to do every day as we balance ourselves

and them. It's these, it's, it's just these little adjustments. One week it's going to work and the next week it doesn't. So let's make this adjustment here. That helped me a lot to think about what balance really looks like. Yeah, I love that. It's so forgiving, isn't it? It gives us so much space to forgive ourselves for like, oh, I didn't get that quite right. Oh, let's course correct. They didn't get that.

It's one of the reasons why I really appreciate my own menstrual cycle awareness practice, because it is these moments throughout the day where I go oh hang on so it's day 21 today so I'm crossing over from my inner summer phase around ovulation into my inner autumn that's why everyone is annoying today how what are the powers here how can I you know all of this it's it helps me make the course corrections I need so that I can not only get through the day, but like myself through the day as well. Yeah. I love that because I think so often we think about the course correction as an external thing. awareness, the cycle awareness, the thought awareness, the exhaustion awareness, that is,

if possible, the place to start. And then what does the external need to do to adjust to meet that balance? Because so often, you know, we, we feel we recognize, oh, that didn't work, terrible day, shit week, whatever it is. And so we'll tweak the outside things like, well, I just need to get up earlier. Or maybe if I'd done a list, I'll just yell at my husband and get him to do more. Or then we just have, you know, sometimes it's just a really beautiful practice to check in first. Okay. Where am I? What's going on with my cycle? Why? For me, I have had Hashimoto's, an autoimmune disease. Ever since my first daughter was born, I got it postpartum and still have it.

So one of the things for me that I really struggle with with this balance is remembering to eat. It's like my internal cue around hunger is just it's just never been great. And then since I had this condition, it's definitely the thing that is out of whack first. She's nearly 17 and it's taken me probably 15 years to finally learn to first check to see if I should eat. Like 15 years of suddenly yelling or getting really anxious for no reason it felt like, or like suddenly the whole house was too noisy or too messy and I'd start lashing out. It's taken a very, very long time. So I hope this is reassuring if anybody feels the same. It's taken me years to realize, hang on first, are you just hungry, Amy? Yeah. It's such a long game.

It's such a long game. And I just always looked externally for the solutions first. And that has been a huge, very recent change for me. Yeah. And it makes sense, doesn't it? Living inside a patriarchal culture that's told us that's deliberately disconnected us from our bodies and the wisdom of our bodies, you know, coming back, rooting ourselves back in takes time, doesn't it? It takes time. Yeah. So I feel like we've spoken a bit to the to the overwhelm the exhaustion that can come up at this time and a bit about the anger and irritability but I'd

really like to get into that because what I hear the most is that the quickening these years running up to menopause are like a prolonged premenstrual phase. I hear that. Everyone's annoying. I'm irritable. I'm angry. I'm hot, literally and emotionally. And I'm curious what advice you'd give to someone who feels like they're just snapping all the time, their tolerance is much lower, their patience is much shorter. Yeah. What would you say to a mama in their forties working with this one? It's very similar to when you look into the description of maternal rage. It feels, which is obviously where my work usually focuses, when you look at the description of the elements that have been

building up to it so when it bursts out of you it is scary and also dripping with judgment. Yes. And so I feel that the solution is similar for maternal rage or perimenopause rage or wherever it's coming. So what we know about maternal rage is that it is often exacerbated by things like stimulation. So noise and, you know, mum, mum, mum, can I have a snack? Mum, mum, can I have a snack? Mum, mum, can I have a snack? Sibling fights, noisy games that, for goodness sakes, everybody gives our kids. You know, these little elements, the cure I think for maternal rage is to recognize that our whole body, all of our senses, everything is being bombarded by the realities of what we're going through. And it's a bit like what we were just talking about, about me learning after 15 years to finally recognize that I'm hungry. I feel it's similar to this anger or rage we might be feeling around perimenopause.

We need to begin to tune into what led up to that feeling. Are we overstimulated? Is it the noise? Is it because we didn't eat? Is it because we're in a certain part of our cycle? Is it, to me, there is such, like I've said a couple of times in this interview, there is such permission and healing to go a bit more macro with this than this tiny micro reaction that you wish you didn't have to look at it through a bigger perspective

where are you in your cycle what's happening with your body have you even sat down today did you you know have you exercised have you done the things that you know you need to balance or to feel a bit more in your body and be more aware of it. And then we can hopefully catch it next time. Yeah. The other important part here is that repair and forgiveness afterwards because in an ideal world, of course, we would love to be able to catch it and, you know, never feel it again. Not going to happen.

Not going to happen, especially when it comes to hormones and children around you at the same time um can i add especially if you also have adolescent teenage girls and boys i don't have an adolescent boy yet he's 11 but um their hormone unpredictability eyes rolling huffing slammingming doors. That triggers me terribly. So, you know, like let's just all look at us with this deep compassion. Again, I'll just share from my own experience. I, the very best repair and forgiveness practice I've found for myself is physical touch.

Yeah, that to me is an instant exhale. I often give myself a hug. I hold my own hand a lot. It actually makes me teary thinking about it. It's something that has got me through so many moments of really wishing I hadn't said that I didn't do that. And just being able to soothe my physical body with my hand, because obviously, as we know, the brain doesn't recognize that it's you. The brain just recognizes that somebody's just acknowledged you. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Yeah. No, the brain doesn't recognize the difference between that touch, that sensation that triggers in your nervous system and the amygdala and the brain. It is almost exactly the same whether it's your own hand or somebody else's. Oh, that's so nice. I often find myself just walking down the street like giving myself a hug or rubbing my like my hand in a circle on my chest just to calm myself the fuck down because I find motherhood so overstimulating

that and that's nice okay it's like someone else is doing it too that's interesting wow yeah and my kids would laugh because um you know they see me all the time in the kitchen just stopping for a moment going it's all right yeah i'm just breathing and literally talking to myself it's okay it's all you've got this all right let's start again don't literally say that out loud um i think that's incredibly important so you know to, recognize what leads up to that. It is usually a perfect storm of hormones and noise and, you know, all of the things that's going on in our crazy lives. And if you can catch it, bravo. If not, on the other side, yeah, see if you can soothe

that nervous system with your own hands and with your breath and with a few beautiful, kind words to yourself. Yeah. Take a moment there. Wow. I hope that helps. Oh, so much. And I'm thinking of my friend who's got two teenage girls in her house while she's really in the thick of this. And it's so intense, isn't it? All of the hormones and identity shifts that are flying around and the triggers that are flying back and forth. It's a huge amount to contend with, isn't it? It is. And let's also add the desire of the good mother, the desire for us to perhaps do it better than we were parented through as a teenager. We're also triggered by seeing their pain as a teenager. If they're going through

something that we experienced, then our inner teenager is triggered. And it is like, excuse my language, it's a shit storm sometimes. And again, I just find it so comforting to be able to know that that's why I feel the way I do. Yes. Yeah. And to then go into, you know, my teenage daughter's rooms and say, look, sorry, I was nuts before, you know, it just took me back to the way I was feeling as a teenager, but it's, that's, I'm not going to put that on you. I'm sorry that that's what came out of my mouth, or I'm sorry I wasn't really hearing what your words were. It totally reminded me of something that I went through and I never want you to go through that. I think that's, yeah, that's the gift of the self-awareness that we have cultivated

that when we land in teenage world, we're able to be so much more aware of ourselves and our own triggers. I don't know how I would be able to parent teenage girls if I hadn't done this work on myself. I honestly, I am so incredibly grateful I started this process when they were little because yeah, I, I don't know how I would be able to do this if I hadn't done so much work on recognizing my own inner stories, inner judgment experiences and triggers, because it has been huge to hold space for them as they go through so much and

and not be drawn into it and not be triggered by it and not yeah it's really important and in many ways it's a different kind of pain because it's like the pain of um being asleep to all of this and or the pain of being awake to all the triggers inside but then we can respond differently and that was a beautiful script you just gave there of like okay what to do how to repair and thank you so much amy i feel like the context that you've laid down from all of the wisdom of all all that you've learned around matrescence as well as these sort of practical pieces of how do we actually do this i think this is hopefully going to be a real resource for for many and I just I deeply appreciate you how can um people connect with you if they yeah want to get to know you and your work

more oh thank you I've loved it like we said before I think we could talk for days um and I'm very much navigating it myself as well. So I do hope that there's been some little nuggets of ideas in here for you. I think I just want to reiterate that the more we can do this together, I ultimately think that that's the calling here, is that we're meant to come back together again now and finally talk about this. And this is the season of us coming together as a group of women. So you can hear my podcast, which is called The Happy Mama Movement. I'm released every week, wherever you listen to your podcasts. Follow me on Instagram at amytaylorkabazz or my website

amytaylorkabazz.com. But also have a look at mamarising.net. This is where many of our coaches around the world are profiled. And if you are going through matrescence and menopause or just matrescence or any of these beautiful pregnancies that we are experiencing as we get ready to birth our next version of ourselves you can find a coach who specializes in those different areas at mamarising.net including cc and so many other women who um are really through this portal of matcence, beginning to look at all the other initiations that we need to do differently as well. So, yeah, that's where you will find them. Thank you so much.

Maybe we can look back in a couple of years and see how you're going with it. Please. I know. Oh, you know what? I would love that. Let's make that a date. Thank you so much, love. Take care.

Thank you. You too. better date thank you so much love take care thank you you too thank you for being with us today I really enjoyed this conversation I'd love to hear your ahas your insights your questions at sophie at redschool.net and please do share this conversation with a friend who you think would benefit from hearing everything that Amy and I explored today and that is it for this week I'll see you again next week and until then keep living life according to your own brilliant rhythm